


Three is (Bad) Company, Too

by DeadLegato After Dark (deadlegato)



Series: Black Cherry Snakes [2]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Arackniss is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), F/F, F/M, Living Together, Multi, Other, Sir Pentious Has Two Penises (Hazbin Hotel), Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:13:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28908390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlegato/pseuds/DeadLegato%20After%20Dark
Summary: Circumstances have lead to Pentious, Arackniss, and Cherri Bomb sharing a house together. Let the insanity begin!
Relationships: Arackniss/Cherri Bomb (Hazbin Hotel), Arackniss/Cherri Bomb/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel), Arackniss/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel), Cherri Bomb/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel)
Series: Black Cherry Snakes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120145
Comments: 69
Kudos: 56





	1. Stupid Sexy Snake

“Hi, my name’s Cherri Bomb, and I’m going to catch you up on what has happened previously in our story. You see, this is me,” she says, pulling out a piece of paper with a slightly-above-stick-figure rendition of herself on it. “Aaaand this is my apartment building,” she said, holding up a grey piece of construction paper. “Was my apartment building. Then this happened. PHEW PHEW PIIIISH!” she said, throwing a rock with the word “FIRE” on it at the construction paper.

“This is Egglord,” she said next, holding up a picture of the “don’t tread on me” snake with a top hat drawn on. “Egglord is my best E. Best enemy, that is. But the thing is, I didn’t have a home, and he has too much home,” she continued. “I’m not kidding. Bastard has a mansion with an underground workshop, a pool, and a shed big enough for a blimp. So anyway, I moved into Egglord’s house,” she said, making the drawing of herself trample the drawing meant to represent Pentious.

“Then I found out my actual bestie best-friend’s brother was looking for a place to live,” she said, holding up a picture of Lucas the spider with a hat, angry eyebrows, and guns drawn onto the image. “And I’m like… hey, Egglord still has too much house, why don’t you come live with us? And he said okay,” she said, making her voice sound goofy for the last word as she wiggled the picture meant to be Arackniss.

“That brings you up to speed. There’s three of us living in Egglord’s house, and two of them are boys who would…” she looked back and forth, then leaned closer to her camera to whisper “Would look really hot kissing each other. Ya girl Cherri’s got her work cut out for her.”

.

“Hey boys, sorry I got caught out late and couldn’t make it home in time for dinner. How did the… is that Chinese takeout? What happened to the big meal spider-boy was planning on making? I told you not to change your plans because of me!” Actually, Cherri had intentionally delayed her return, in hopes that the two guys would have to cook and eat a very nice meal together, just the two of them, romantically. You see, Cherri’s problem was that while both men had indicated at least some level of interest in her, only Pentious had shown any interest in Arackniss. If Cherri was going to make herself the middle of a man sandwich, she needed both slices of bread to cooperate.

Arackniss silently held up his upper left hand, which was now a pile of bandages. “What happened?” she asked, eye wide in surprise.

.

Earlier, in the kitchen

.

Pentious was working on desert as Arackniss worked on the main meal. While Pentious could bake, having a grasp of exact chemistry and sciences necessary to do so, he was terrible at cooking. He could not improvise to save what was left of his poor snake soul. Arackniss was the opposite.

Pentious was humming to himself and doing a slight unconscious hip-shake dance as he was preparing to make whipped cream. Arackniss found himself unable to stop glancing up at the snake as he did his own work, preparing chopped vegetables. With that perfect hourglass shape, that snatched waist and big, round snake booty to shake… Damn, for a man, he truly had what one might call ‘hips that don’t lie.’ He just couldn’t stop looking, even though he knew Pentious was a man. He also knew Pentious had hypnotic powers, but he thought they were in his hair, not on his ass. That long, silken, raven-black and sunshine yellow hair…

He stopped to shake his head, slightly flushed. The snake looked so much like a woman. It was just confusing his brain. Crossing his wires, if you will. He liked women, and only women, and the snake’s shape was befuddling him. Maybe one might even call it bewitching.

Even his brother had noticed it. One time, Anthony/Angel had suggested he should start an Aerosmith cover band with Pentious and the anglerfish Baxter and call it “Dudes who look like ladies.” The other guys were far less amused by the idea than Angel was. Of course, Angel had also suggested that he, Husk, and Alastor could be ‘Charlie’s Angels’ so he liked making up weird team names.

“Oh, fiddles!” Pentious declared. “I didn’t have the beater in the right place.” The whipping cream had splashed up onto his face. There were large, pendulous drops of white, foamy liquid just… dropping down those smooth grey scales… “I’ve made a right mess of myself. How is it going on your end, Mister… Mister… ARACKNISS!” Pentious shrieked as he turned around. He pointed directly at the spider. “What have you done?!”

Arackniss looked down. He’d been so distracted by the stupid sexy snake that… he’d started chopping his hand. Only when Pentious pointed it out did he start to hurt, and did he let out a horrific scream.

.

“With all the blood and the things that were knocked over when we both panicked, there was… not much left we actually wanted to cook,” Pentious explained. “Luckily we’re demons so we just have to wait for it to heal. We’d be on our way to the hospital for several major surgeries if we were still human. I’ve cut myself plenty of times working on my brilliant inventions, so I was able to patch it up as best I can until his healing ability kicks in.”

“Lucky you’ve got four arms, so you’re only down to 75% of full capacity,” Cherri snorted. She didn’t want to laugh at Arackniss’ pain, but it was kind of funny, if she was being honest. “What you got for leftovers?”

“Pentious ate all the egg rolls and cream cheese wontons already, but we’ve got some left of everything else,” Arackniss shrugged with an annoyed grunt.

“It is so strange. If you just gave me hot cream cheese and told me to eat it, I would be disgusted. But you put it in this fried dough, and I can’t stop,” the snake answered. “Also, I think the Egg Bois took all the fortune cookies.”

That was true. “I’m going to travel in my future!” one egg said happily.

“I’m going to find love,” another said.

“I’m going to get shot with a ray gun,” a third egg said, giving an eyebrow waggle to Pentious.

“You’re making that up, and I know it,” Pentious responded, yawning.

“One thing I want to know. How did you get so distracted that you didn’t notice you were cutting your own hand off?”

“I was… thinking about work…” the spider said, but she noticed a slight flush in his cheeks. Hmmmm…. Cherri wasn’t sure she believed him.

“Are you going to have any trouble showering because of your injury? Do you need any help because of it?”

He flushed even further, staring directly at her. In his mind, he was seeing what Cherri would look like in the shower. Were her nipples as bright pink as her freckles? “Maybe… maybe I might need a little… help,” he said, thinking she was offering.

“Great, Pentious can help you.” Pentious choked on his tea at the same time that Arackniss’ face went completely blank. Like, spider brain has had a critical error and needs to restart. “I mean, you’re two dudes, right? It would be kind of weird for me, a woman, to get into the shower with a guy she’s not in a relationship with, wouldn’t it? Unless maybe that guy has something he’d like to say to me,” she said smoothly, giving him a sharp-toothed smile.

“Well, I… uh… I showered this morning, and I should be healed up by tomorrow night, so I think I’ll be okay,” he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck, still flushed. Damn. So close.

“What are you taking for the pain?” she asked. “I imagine that would hurt like Hell, pardon the pun.”

“Most pain killers don’t work on spiders. Pentious used some crazy hypnotism thing to make it stop hurting. I was kind of weirded out by it at first, but it worked surprisingly well.”

“So, you’re okay with being hypnotized, hm? Have you ever thought about…”

“Stop trying to make everything about carnal pleasures, Miss Bomb!” a flustered Pentious cut in. Damn it, boy. I’m trying to help you out here. Throw a wing-girl a bone so you can get your boner.

“I’m guessing horror movies are off the docket for a movie choice tonight?” Cherri asked. “You’ve both seen enough blood for one day already.”

“We’re in Hell. If seeing blood was a reason to not watch horror movies, we’d never watch them,” a grumpy spider pointed out. “I hope this heals before I get called into work again. I’d never be able to explain to pops that I can make it through a knife fight against four fully armed men without a scratch, but I lost a fight and several fingers to a knife in a kitchen.” Stupid, stupid, distractingly sexy snake. Who ever decided a guy should be so hot?

“To be fair, don’t you usually win knife fights because you bring a gun to them?” Cherri asked.

“I don’t know why people in Hell think I won’t show up with guns, even they aren’t permanently lethal. Or why enemies insist on attacking me one on a time for no apparent reason. Wouldn’t it make more sense for all of them to rush me at once?” Arackniss asked.

“Nothing about this place makes sense and we should just embrace the chaos,” Cherri responded with a shrug as she stuffed her face with leftover takeout.

An Egg Boi suddenly flew through the living room. “My fortune cookie came truuuuuuuue,” he shouted before he splatted against a wall.

“How the fuck?” Pentious asked, completely baffled.

“If you don’t know, we don’t know,” Cherri answered. “Hey, I hear raw egg is really good on fried rice. Do you think?”

“I wouldn’t unless you like food poisoning. They’re pretty rotten eggs,” Pentious responded. Okay, so that plan to get the guys hooked up hadn’t gone as expected. She’d have to come up with a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggestions for wacky plans for Cherri to try to get all three of them into a relationship are welcome!
> 
> Will contain all the pairings so plenty of Cherrisnake, Pentniss, and BlackCherri so everyone gets a little of what they like. :P


	2. Strike a Pose: Snake Style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For WhiteCrow12e, based on their suggestion. Cherri takes the boys lingerie shopping, and something unexpected happens. Of course it does. Hot off the presses because I got this idea immediately after reading it and couldn't stop myself :P. I'll hopefully get to the others later.

“Hey, boys, you wanna join me at the maul today?” Cherri asked, sticking her head into the living room. She got a resounding myeeeeeh of disinterest from both Arackniss and Pentious, who were hanging out on the couch being lumps in front of the television.

“That’s really too bad. I was going to shop for lingerie. Angel usually gives me his opinions but he’s busy today. Guess I’ll just have to go without anyone to tell me how I look in my undies,” she shrugged, heading for the door.

“WAIT!” she heard two voices call behind her. She smiled. Checkmate!

.

That was how the three demons found themselves in Velvet’s secret. “What do you think, boys? Should I try on the red set, or the black set first?” she asked, waving triangular pieces of very expensive lace in front of them.

“Black,” Arackniss said.

At the exact same time, Pentious shouted “Red.” They looked at one another.

“I’ll do black first and then red. Sorry, snakey. Spider boy was faster,” she gave them a smirk with her tongue out, heading for the fitting rooms.

As the boys awkwardly waited, an ostrich demon peered sneakily around a rack of sheer robes. He kept holding up his hands in the boys’ direction. He was making square motions with his feathered fingers towards them, like someone evaluating a lovely painting from a distance.

Pentious was completely oblivious, as he was trying his best not to look at anything in particular. He was getting quite flustered being surrounded by that much women’s underwear. Arackniss, however, was always on guard, and he immediately felt the eyes on them. It made the spider hairs on his neck stand up.

The ostrich was not prepared for the spider to practically jump across the entire length of the store to land next to him, grabbing him by the lapels of his purple dress shirt. “What you staring at, emu boy?” Arackniss growled.

“I’m an ostrich,” he squeaked. The spider’s grip tightened. “Wait, wait,” he pleaded, holding up his wing-hands. “I… I need your help. Or, more specifically… I need the snake’s help.” Pentious tilted his head, completely baffled. “Look, there’s going to be a very important fashion show in the Bergdorf Badman store, and our top model just called out due to molting.”

“Wait, isn’t that the store you can’t even enter without showing the right kind of credit card?” Arackniss asked.

The ostrich huffed. “I’ve been running up and down the maul… well, excuse the phrase, like a chicken with his head cut off. I was desperately hoping to find someone, anyone, with her measurements, and then you appeared! Like a goddess from the sky!”

Cherri, emerging from the fitting room having not had a chance to start changing before the commotion started, snorted. “That’s a guy,” she said.

“That’s a… well, that’s not important! What matters is he can fit into the custom fitted clothing we need to show off like… like… now! Please, I’m begging you! I’ll do anything, anything!” he pleaded, falling on his knees at the snake’s… uh… tail?

“Go for what he would have paid the model plus getting to keep whatever you wear,” Cherri urged.

“That’s… that’s a very non-standard agreement, but I’d take it, I’m desperate!” he pleaded.

“But… but I don’t know how to be a model!” Pentious argued back.

“You wear clothes and slither up and down a catwalk while people take your picture. Did I mention that models are generally thought of as being the height of cool and popular?” she asked him, giving him a light elbow in the ribs.

You could see the gears starting to turn in the snake’s head. “Cool and popular?” he asked. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Very well, the great Sir Pentious shall assist you.”

“GREAT WE’RE LATE!” he said, hefting the snake up above his head so fast that his hat fell off. Cherri caught it. The ostrich took off with the complaining snake held high in the air. Arackniss picked up the one Egg Boi Pentious had brought with and chased after the ostrich.

They raced through back tunnels of the maul, a place Arackniss never knew had existed before, arriving at a set-up where a bunch of models were doing make-up and feathers. You see, every model except the snake were bird demons. They gave Pentious a very suspicious look, being wary of a potential egg-eater in their midst.

“A snake?” one of them asked, sounded disgusted.

“I know, I know, but he has the perfect measurements we need! Get him into make up!” he said, shoving Pentious down into a folding chair.

“I’ve never worked on snake hair,” the actual emu running the hairdressing station frowned. “I didn’t know snakes had hair. Can I cut it?”

“NO YOU CAN’T!” Pentious snapped, his hood standing up on end.

“Whoa, articulated hair. That’s kind of interesting. Maybe I’ll just… put feathers in it…?”

“You allergic to any make-up?” a bird of paradise asked.

“Not that I’m aware of, but I don’t usually…”

“Great, shut your eyes and let me get to work,” she said, pushing an airbrush in his face. “I hope this base looks good with grey scales.”

Cherri was biting her lip to keep from laughing, standing off on the sidelines wearing Pentious’ hat. Arackniss looked down and realized she’d hauled the clothing from the store out with her, and he was pretty sure she hadn’t paid for it. Arackniss was holding onto the Egg Boi and trying hard not to notice how extra-attractive the makeup made the snake. It was a little hard to ignore it when they removed and tossed off his coat, as they were covering him in fully-body shimmer. He was going to be finding glitter in odd places for the rest of his afterlife, even if he lived another hundred years. He especially found himself loving the heavy eyeshadow done in brilliant silver and gold, as black wouldn’t have been easily visible on the snake. They had another intern outlining each of his body eyes in a gold that was just dark enough to contrast with his yellow scales. He protested loudly enough that they finally let him duck behind a screen, but by then, it was too late. Everyone had seen everything.

It wasn’t until the snake emerged from behind the changing screen in a skin-tight white halter top and a mini skirt that was so sheer that it would have been likely indecent exposure for a mammal to wear it that Arackniss actually heard his heart go ba-doomp. “Daaamn, they made old man hot,” Cherri whistled, being less restrained that Arackniss. She was so going to jump his snake bones that night and make him wear that outfit while she did it.

“I’m not sure what I think about these sleeves,” Pentious said. “They’re quite impractical for getting any work done.” They were detached sleeves, and they looked like someone had cut the sleeves off a sheer white kimono and stuck them on him. There were even delicate black flowers embroidered on it.

“You look good in white,” Arackniss stammered. “The contrast is nice.”

“But do I look cool?” Pentious asked, tugging on the hem. “It feels too short.”

“You don’t normally wear anything below the waist,” Cherri pointed out.

“Then it is saying something that this skirt feels too short!” he argued back.

The ostrich grabbed him and shoved him towards the line-up of models. “Just watch the girls and imitate what they do,” he said as he pushed Pentious in line. “Wait, what did you say your name was again? I need to update the online roster.”

“I am the great Sir Pentious, future…”

“GREAT, I got it. Get in line!” the ostrich said, running off as he frantically typed on his phone.

Despite not having been a model before, this wasn’t the first time Pentious had been on stage. He’d had some training in stage presence and such. He still felt a nervous knot in his stomach, and was glad he hadn’t eaten recently, as snakes tended to regurgitate when nervous or stressed.

The first thing he immediately noticed when he stepped out was the three V’s in the audience. Only Velvet looked like she wanted to be there and was paying any attention, as the other two were buried in their phones. Still, that was enough to nearly freeze his cold-blooded heart in place. “MOVE,” one of the other models had to angrily whisper in where they thought his ears would be to get him snapped out of his trance and moving.

Cool and popular, cool and popular, show them you’re cool and popular,” he thought in his head. What was it that Angel always said? Fierce? He could do fierce, right?

As he returned backstage, he thought it was over, and he had breathed a sigh of relief. That was, until the birds grabbed him and shoved him behind the screen again. “What… what are you doing? I finished my walk! Slither?”

“Our top model was going to do more than once outfit,” the emu responded bluntly. They ended up basically tossing the outfit to Cherri, who caught it as they speed-stripped the blushing snake. Arackniss couldn’t look away. From his angle, he could easily see behind the screen, and watching them nearly rip the snake’s clothing off… it made him feel something in his pants. His heart was going insane in his chest, and his breath wouldn’t come out right.

“Um, Mister Arackniss?” the Egg Boi he was holding spoke up, raising its skinny black hand.

“What is it?” he asked, snapping out of his trance.

“Why is your nose bleeding?” the egg asked in return. Some of it had dropped onto the poor egg, splattering red on his nice white shell.

A few minutes later, with tissue stuffed up both his nostrils, Arackniss watched Pentious in a red tube top and red-gold bolero with a way oversized collar, and a skirt that was little more than a bunch of pieces of loosely woven rope. “Can’t a demon get a decent bottom around here?” he asked hopelessly before the birds shoved him back out onto the catwalk.

“Pffft, he said he wants a bottom,” Cherri snickered, slapping Arackniss on the back.

“Ye… yeah… funny…” he stammered.

.

“This is the final piece,” the emus said to a bewildered and somewhat dizzy Pentious. It was a wedding dress. Heart-shaped top, lots of sheer white inlays, beads, and pearls… it glittered like the snake’s iridescent dusted scales. Forget looking cool and popular. He looked like royalty. Like that dress should belong to the princess herself. Seeing the snake in it was enough that both tissues ended up rocketing out of the spider’s nose, sending him fleeing for paper towels.

“Does Mister Arackniss have sinus problems?” the Egg Boi asked Cherri, scratching his head.

“Something’s stuffed up and needs to be unplugged, but it’s not his sinuses,” Cherri responded.

“I don’t get it.”

“I’ll explain it when you’re older,” she said, patting the egg on the head.

.

“You got five new DESIGNER outfits out of that, you got to look cool in front of the V’s, and even I got two new sets of undies,” Cherri said as Pentious retreated backstage, glad it was over. He was so exhausted he could barely even hear the applause. Normally he’d be so puffed out from ego at all that applause that his head would swell until his hat didn’t fit him.

“I don’t know when I’ll ever wear them. They’re all short-short dresses,” Pentious frowned. “And a… wedding dress?” he asked in confusion, pulling on the fabric with his long pink fingers.

The ostrich came running up. “Wait, wait, don’t leave! You’ve been invited to a private after party! My… my boss loved you!”

“Private after party?” Pentious seemed confused.

“One where the front row audience, like the Overlords, would likely also be in attendance?” Cherri asked back.

“I suspect as much.”

That perked Pentious up. “Then of course I’ll go!” he said brightly.

“Great, and they want you to keep that dress on.”

“…” Pentious was at a loss to respond.

“We’re coming too. We’re his bodyguards,” Cherri said, throwing on Pentious’ coat to at least make herself look… somewhat more presentable. She couldn’t button it, as his waist was considerably tinier than hers.

.

“I thought celebrity parties would be more exciting,” Cherri grunted, drinking a tiny cup of punch. “I don’t think this is even spiked.”

An elaborately dressed female owl demon looked her up and down. “Who are you wearing?” she asked in a dismissive tone.”

“I don’t know, he hasn’t told me his name yet,” she said, grinning widely as she pointed to the living hat on her head. The owl ruffled her feathers and stalked off.

Pentious, meanwhile, was adoring being adored. He was surrounded by powerful men, who thought his voice a little odd, but hadn’t quite realized he was a dude yet. Cherri wasn’t going to ruin the moment. Arackniss felt… weird. He didn’t like those other men talking to Pentious. He didn’t know why. It just… bothered him.

As they were all talking and laughing, a weird demon that looked like a winged leopard suddenly full-out slapped Pentious’ ass, causing the snake to yelp. Before Arackniss really knew what his body was doing, he’d punched the other demon in the face, laying him out on the ground. The room let out a collective gasp of shock.

.

“So that’s the story of how you punched a demon prince in the face?” Angel asked. “Because you got mad that he slapped snake-boy’s ass?”

“I got mad because he committed an act of sexual assault right in front of me,” Arackniss argued.

‘Rando spider bodyguard punches demon prince: demon prince revealed to have glass jaw’ was the headline on all the hot tea and gossip pages.

“So much for having a career as a model,” Pentious shrugged. The three of them had basically had to run for it after Arackniss’ outburst.

“It was fun while it lasted though,” Cherri laughed. “And at least the ostrich dude got your name wrong so the demon prince won’t be able to track us down.”

“Yes. Siri Pennytoush indeed!” the snake huffed.


	3. Zoo... phobia?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The princess takes everyone, including the snake household, to the zoo. Arackniss finds himself thinking of the past. For cheycartoongirl8, who suggested it.

Boo at the Zoo

“Thanks for agreeing to pick me up,” Angel said as he popped into the back of Arackniss’ car. “A road trip in the princess’ limo with Vaggie and Al’s bad jokes but without any drugs or liquor… sorry, Husker. There’s a limit to what even I can put up with for a cutie.”

You see, someone had sent twenty free tickets for the zoo to the hotel. Not having twenty residents, Angel asked if his brother and Cherri could also be invited. And since Charlie couldn’t leave anyone out, that meant Sir Pentious inadvertently got invited as well. Angel would have honestly preferred the aquarium, but he’d take what he could get. Otherwise it would just be another day with Charlie playing therapist and trying to transfer her abnormal levels of cheer into the others.

“Hey, how come snake boy gets the front seat? And why did he get to modify his shirt?” Angel demanded.

“Because I don’t fit in the back seat and because I have an eye in the middle of my chest,” Pentious hissed. “You try having fabric rubbing against your eyes constantly.”

“My chest fluff needs to breathe, too!” Angel argued back. You see, there was one condition to the free tickets: Everyone had to wear an ugly pale-yellow shirt with white text that read “Happy Hotel.” Since Pentious had modified his shirt, it now said “Hay Hotel.” Frankly, seeing him with the tall top hat he insisted on wearing despite the silly group tour shirt was hilarious to Angel. He would have laughed even harder if he’d known that Pentious spent all morning worrying that wearing a yellow shirt, even one in another color, with nothing over it would make it look like he’d gone to the zoo naked.

.

Arackniss was so happy to see the parking lot of the zoo that he almost cried. The entire road trip, Angel and Cherri had insisted on talking about gross sex stuff. It made the trip seem half as long for the two of them, but twice as long for him and Pentious. Pentious practically jumped out of the car the second it stopped in a parking spot. He didn’t want to hear the words penis or eggplant one more time that day.

“How was the trip for the limo crew?” Angel asked Husk.

“Please tell me this zoo serves booze. I had to listen to Alastor doing a one-man show the entire way,” he moaned, his body limp. Niffty had to practically drag him along.

“What part of the zoo do we want to see first?” Charlie asked.

“We should do the parts that are outside first,” Arackniss suggested. “That way we can go inside if it starts getting hot later in the day.” He remembered, the occasional times in their childhood when his father would feel generous enough to take the kids out for fun, he would always say that at the start of the day. Do the outdoor activities first so you can go inside when the noon sun is up, he said. The ‘sun’ in Hell might have been artificial, but that didn’t mean it didn’t get hot. Even if it wasn’t the literal pit of fire he would have expected from religion, it could still get unpleasantly hot.

“Then how about the… Africa trail?” Charlie suggested.

“It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you. There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do! I bless the rains down in Aaaaaafrica,” Angel and Cherri sang.

“I can and will duct-tape your faces shut,” Alastor informed them.

“Spoil sport. Hey, he’s cheating too!” Angel said, pointing at the fact that Alastor was wearing his usual coat over the shirt, so only a flash of the yellow could be seen underneath.

“Are you going to be the one to make him take that coat off?” Vaggie asked, and Angel just make a muffled sound of annoyance. Yeah, she thought so.

As the group stood with giraffes on the left and elephants on the right, Arackniss spoke up. “Elephants are one of my favorite animals,” he said wistfully.

“Really? Any particular reason why?” Pentious asked.

“Couldn’t say. I find them majestic. They’re social, they have complex feelings even if they can’t express them with words, and they’re incredibly intelligent. They form family bonds that stick together through… seems like everything,” he mused. “And their trunks are pretty cool too, I guess.”

“I bet he wonders what being tall would be like,” Angel joked. Arackniss gave him an annoyed side-glance.

“Wouldn’t I be looking at the giraffes then?”

“Hey, do you remember the time with the elephants and pops?” Angel asked. Arackniss thought back. He remembered the time they’d gotten to take a ride on an elephant as kids, all three of them up so high and waving as their parents watched from the ground. Even a man as huge as their father looked tiny from up there. That was before such things were considered uncouth, of course. Before he could speak up with the pleasant memory, Angel interrupted. “I asked pops why the one elephant had an extra trunk between his legs and then what he was doing to the other elephant. Ma sure rushed us on to the next exhibit fast, didn’t she?” Ah, of course Anthony’s memories would rotate around a crude sex joke.

Fortunately for Arackniss’ embarrassment, Angel had the attention span of a gnat. (Despite being a spider demon, that was.) “Lions!” he said eagerly, running over to the fence. “Lions are really kinky! Did you know that…”

“Angel, STOP!” most of the group said in unison.

“Why am I the only one here who doesn’t hate fun?” he pouted as Cherri patted his back.

The rest of the loop around the Africa trail was as uneventful as anything could be for our particular group of misfit demons. They had gotten stern looks from a zookeeper when Angel screamed ‘hey warthog pull my finger!’ over a fence, but that was about the extent of it. He’d gotten a lecture from Vaggie about how this ‘wasn’t the Lion King’ as a result. They also had to practically pry Alastor away from the hyena exhibit, as he liked the sound of their laughter a little too much.

“Let’s do the primate exhibits next!” Charlie suggested. As everyone moved forward, Pentious suddenly noticed Arackniss hanging slightly back.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing, just a little tired,” he muttered.

Pentious didn’t look convinced. “If you say- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he screamed, practically shedding his skin in terror as he jumped back, hood out, hissing. Angel and Cherri broke into hysterical laughter. While he’d been distracted, they’d tied a balloon with an angry face on it to his tail. When he turned around, he’d been face-to-face with it.

.

“Ha ha, those monkeys are flinging their poo!” Angel laughed and pointed.

“That’s so messy!” Niffy said disapprovingly.

“Maybe they were politicians in a past life,” Husk said with a shrug. While the animals at the Hell zoo looked like normal animals from a distance, if you spent enough time looking them over, you would see that each one had some slight and often extremely subtle modifications that revealed them to be demon animals, akin to Fat Nuggets looking mostly like a pig with a few extra bits.

“Arackniss? You really don’t look good,” Pentious pointed out. “Arackniss?”

His eyes were dilated, and his skin looked paler than normal. He was trapped in a memory. He’d been just a child, at a zoo with his parents and younger siblings. One of the monkeys had targeting him for an intense poop-throwing harassment campaign, for reasons he would never understand. As he screamed and cried, covered in monkey dookie, his siblings had laughed and laughed at him while his father only gave him a backhand across the face for being an ‘embarrassing crybaby.’ He was back in that moment, shaking and covered in shit while tears streamed down his face and his father screamed at him to man up.

It wasn’t until Pentious got directly in front of him, blocking his view, that he snapped out of it. “Oh… I… I think I might have gotten too much sun,” he said, shaking his head violently.

“Why don’t I escort you to one of the air-conditioned exhibits so that you can sit for a moment and we can rejoin the group once you’re feeling better?” the snake suggested.

“Yeah, thanks I… I would appreciate that…”

Of course, the nearest exhibit with climate control would be the reptile house. “Is it weird seeing all these snakes considering that you’re… uh…”

“You can say that I’m a snake, it doesn’t offend me to have my species pointed out,” Pentious said. They were sitting side by side on a narrow bench. There was a video droning on in the background about snakes, but neither of them was paying much attention to it. “Are you feeling better? Your color has improved. You were certainly right about it getting hotter later in the day.”

“I just needed some cold air and a drink,” Arackniss tried to shrug it off as he took another sip of water. He wasn’t about to unburden his emotional baggage on anyone, let alone his housemate. He kept his feelings so close to his chest, he never let them out.

“I am glad. I would hate to see anything happen to you. I mean… um… as… as your fellow housemate!” the snake stammered. “I am just platonically expressing my concern for a friend.”

“You… think of me as a friend?” he asked. “I thought I was just a guy who lives in your house.”

“Well, it seems that you and Cherri are growing on me. Much to my chagrin,” he sighed.

Arackniss wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t used to anyone calling him a friend. Mostly, they called him names, and then they died. In the awkward silence between them, the background noise of the video seemed to get increasingly louder. “And this is what we call a mating ball,” the video said. Arackniss noticed that it was now Pentious who looked a little flushed and was trying his hardest to act like he could neither see nor hear what was essentially snake porn happening just to the left of him. “Multiple males will attempt to coil themselves around a single female. The male who gets himself in the right position to place one of his two hemipenises inside the female’s cloaca will have the honor or breeding her for the next generation of baby snakes.”

“Wait wait… TWO dicks? Egglord, do YOU have two dicks?!” Angel asked loudly, startling them both. A brilliant scarlet flushed across the snake’s cheeks. They hadn’t heard him or Cherri walking up on them.

“That’s… that’s none of your business!” Pentious hissed in a stammering voice.

“I’ll take that as an unspoken yes,” Angel snorted. “Damn, I thought lions were kinky. Turns out snakes are the kinky ones. Double-dick gang bang!”

“Anthony, no!” Arackniss snapped.

“Oh, come on, there aren’t any kids in here!” he paused. “Actually, you two were the only ones in here before we walked in. Hmmm, sitting alone in the dark, watching a little snake nooky, were you?” he asked, grinning with his tongue out.

“I… I think I’ve had enough cold air! Time to rejoin the others!” Arackniss said as he stood up and walked awkwardly out, legs stiff. Cherri jabbed her elbow into Angel’s ribs and gave him a sharp look.

“What?” he asked.

.

“It’s no aquarium, but I’ll take what I can get,” Angel said as they were in a series of tunnels that put them eye-to-eye with swimming fish. He had made it known that he preferred looking at fish over looking at animals. “Oh, jellyfish!”

“Beautiful, but often deadly,” Pentious said as he slithered over to the rest of the group.

“Is it true that you can pee on a jellyfish sting to stop the venom?” Angel asked.

“Why are you looking at me like I would know that?” Pentious responded.

“I mean, your mister big-brain, right? And aren’t you toxic too?”

That got the snake’s hood ruffled again. “There is a difference between venomous, poisonous, and toxic!” he lectured, wagging a finger. “You see…”

“Mmmm, don’t care. Too long, didn’t read,” Angel shrugged, leaving a confused Pentious stuck in exposition mode with no one left to listen to him. It had caused his brain to error out. It took him a moment to recover.

“Look at the dolphins,” Pentious said as he finally broke through his brain funk. He pressed himself up against the glass. His eyes were shining, and the tip of his tail was doing a happy thump. “Some of the smartest animals on the mortal plane. If I could not be a snake demon, I would want to be a dolphin demon.”

“What about a shark demon? Then you’d get to keep your two c… eggplants,” Angel said, noticing there was an imp child present this time.

“My goodness, is that really all you think about?” Pentious asked, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“You wound me, Sir Pretentious! I also think about drugs,” he joked, skipping away.

“We should go watch the dolphin show!” Charlie suggested.

.

“Did we have to sit in the splash zone?” a very damp Angel asked. “I’m wet, and not in the way that I usually mean when I say that.” The only ones who weren’t wet were Alastor and Niffty, as Alastor had shared the umbrella he had manifested with her. As soon as the splashing started, Husk had noped out of there.

Other than wet hair and a wet hat, Pentious was mostly okay, as he didn’t have wet fur to worry about. “Poor Arackniss, you look like… um…”

“Like the itsy-bitsy spider that lost a fight with a waterspout. I know,” he grunted.

.

They met up with Husk again as he was staring at a snow leopard. “Did you know that zoo cats get to sleep all day and someone else provides their food and cleans up after them? They don’t have to do any work at all. Where do I sign up to become a zoo cat?” he asked.

“I don’t think they allow booze in the zoo, Husky,” Angel pointed out to him.

“Tsch. I knew there had to be a catch,” Husk grunted, dragging along after the rest of the group.

“Oh, gift shop, gift shop!” Angel cheered and pointed with all four arms. Lucifer, it was like seeing him as a kid again. Another twang of nostalgia hit Arackniss in the chest.

“Do you have any money for the gift shop?” he asked his excited younger brother. 

“… Can I borrow fifty, Niss?” he asked. Yes, indeed. This was exactly like old times.

Inside the gift shop, Cherri held up a pair of fuzzy socks. “Hey Egglord, why don’t you get these?”

“Miss Bomb, might I reiterate to you that I do not have feet?” he responded dryly. He was shaking a snow globe. The gift shop had a lot of tiny, tight corners, and he kind of felt like a rat in a maze combined with a bull in a china shop trying to pull his massive body through it without knocking anything over.

“Nah, you can put them on your… eggplants. To keep them warm at night.”

“Why would Sir Pentious need to put socks on his eggplants?” Charlie asked, completely confused.

“Just keep your innocence, princess. Just keep your innocence,” Cherri responded, giving her a pat on the shoulder.

“Hey, Egglord, what do you call a snake who builds things?” Angel called across the store. “A boa constructor!” he laughed, not waiting to give Pentious the chance to answer. “How do venomous snakes kill their prey? In cold blood!”

“What in the nine rings of Hell has gotten into you?” Pentious asked, obviously not impressed.

Angel held up a book with the title ‘Best animal jokes for kids.’ “You don’t have to throw a hissy fit about it,” he said. Cherri was trying not to laugh out loud so hard she was snorting like Fat Nuggets. It wasn’t that the jokes were funny. Watching Pentious’ extremely dismayed expressions was. “Okay, okay, just one more! I was taking care of my friend's snake while he was on vacation, but somehow it crawled into our freezer and died. I asked my wife, ‘How should I tell him?’ She said, ‘Just give it to him straight.”

Even Arackniss involuntarily let out a small chortle at that last one. If Pentious rolled all of his eyes any harder, he would have sprained them. “Fine, two can play at this!” he said, grabbing another book off the shelf. “What do you get when you cross a spider and a squirrel? A bug… wait, shouldn’t that say arachnid? Oh well… a bug that crawls up your leg and eats your nuts!”

Pentious clearly did not realize what he’d just said. After a moment of staring and blinking, Angel and Cherri were both launched into hysterical laughter fits to the point where they were doubled over, holding their stomachs, and crying. The fact that Pentious kept staring at the book with an expression indicating that he didn’t get it only made it funnier. “That wasn’t a very good joke,” he said finally. “Here’s another one. Dear Men, I can make your girlfriend scream louder than you.... Sincerely, Spider. These… these jokes don’t seem very child appropriate!” he stammered.

“Pent, you grabbed the wrong book,” Arackniss pointed out. Pentious looked at the cover. It said, ‘Best animal jokes for the bedroom.’ The blushing snake immediately put it down and slithered away, pretending it had never happened. Arackniss could only shake his head. Frankly… Pentious was kind of cute when he was stupid. Cute like in a sad puppy dog way, not in a sexual attraction way! he quickly mentally corrected himself. Stupid brain. He really had, had too much sun.

.

“That was a fun day at the zoo!” Angel said brightly as Arackniss drove them home.

“Was a fun day at the zoo until Alastor started asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions about what the animals taste like,” Cherri pointed out. “I think the staff was getting about ready to call the cops on us.” She had a bag with a giant stuffed elephant in it that she was hiding from the others. Arackniss was going to find it in his room with a note claiming it was from Pentious. After all, she’d swiped his card out of his pocket to pay for it.

“Hey, he only asked about the animals that look like deer!” Angel responded back with a shrug.

“To be blunt, the zoo kind of made me hungry as well,” Pentious agreed.

“McDonalds, McDonalds!” Angel started chanting.

“You have food at home,” Arackniss grunted.

“McDonalds, McDonalds!” Cherri joined in.

“We do not need to stop for fast food.”

“McDonalds, McDonalds!” Great, now even Pentious was doing it, giving him the most ridiculous grin possible in the process. Arackniss sighed, his shoulders slumping as he surrendered. “Fine, we’ll go to McDonalds.” It really… it really was like being kids again, wasn’t it? He would never admit it, but he felt a certain warmth in his heart thinking about it. It had been a good day, hadn’t it? He could use more days like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad snake jokes from: https://www.wideopenpets.com/snake-puns/


	4. Short update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath of the zoo trip

SHORT UPDATE

“Cherri?” Angel asked tentatively, opening the door the what they’d jokingly started calling the ‘Snake House’. “Niss? I’ve been texting and neither of you have been answering. I just came over to see if you’re all okay.” He waved his hand in front of his face. It smelled like they were back at the zoo in here.

Cherri emerged from the kitchen in a bathrobe with dark ring under her eye. She had two round pink pill disks in her hand that she popped in her mouth and chewed while looking at him dispassionately. “I can’t believe you’re not sick,” she said slowly, steading herself against the wall as she held her middle.

“Cherri? What’s wrong?” he asked in concern.

“McD*nalds, that’s what happened,” his brother groaned. “We still have any of those gut meds?” he asked Cherri.

“Snake boy had an entire case delivered this morning, along with the electrolyte drinks. I think, given his body, he probably has it the worst out of all of us,” she groaned as Arackniss dug out a pack of pills from the paper bags on the table. “He’s basically all intestine.”

“And he’s been screaming curses at how toilets in hell are designed for demons with… posterior anuses, I believe was the term he used,” Arackniss agreed.

“Yeah. I would not want to trade places with him right now for anything,” Cherri agreed. Her gut rumbled so loudly that she grabbed it and ran for the nearest bathroom with speed that would shame a greyhound.

“Huh, funny, I feel fine,” Angel said. “Well, I’ll go back to the hotel and for now. You don’t look like you want to hang out today.”

“Yeah, no shit. Actually, I wish we could have no shit for a little while,” Arackniss moaned.

Angel made it as far as the end of the walk before he heard a loud burbling from his middle. In moments, he was back in the house and frantically asking his brother where the nearest available bathroom was.

Oh, no.

McD*onalds indeed.

AFTER WRITING that chapter, your author was like “now I want McD*nalds” and your author GREATLY REGRETS IT. *


	5. Draw me like one of your french snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Bookworm4567, per their suggestion
> 
> Cherri tries to get the boys together with a little "live drawing session," but when her plan goes wrong, the Egg Bois take things into their own hands.
> 
> TW for homophobic slur

Cherri sighed, unable to sleep. At least this time, it wasn’t because her body was turning itself inside out. It was because her thoughts wouldn’t stop running. The small spider beside her, however, had been out cold from the second he finished. The two men she was after to start her Overlord harem couldn’t have been more different. Pentious, despite his bombastic public personality and huge physical build (not to mention the two impressive “eggplants” that went with it) tended to be a bit of a shy, gentle giant in bed. He was constantly asking her if she was okay with what he was doing and seemed almost afraid to use his full strength no matter how much she screamed for him to go harder. He had a fire hose of a stream when did he come. He always made sure she came as well, much to her surprise since they were… you know… supposed to be rivals. Not to mention, when she was an Overlord, she would put that lithe snake tongue to her use daily.

Arackniss, on the other hand… well, she felt bad saying it, but he was kind of like a chihuahua humping her leg. He seemed to have some kind of complex worrying about his size and thought he could make up for it by hump-hump-humping frantically. It was very, very much straight man sex. Clothes off, forget the foreplay, jump on top and hump. She also felt too bad to ask him if he was a virgin before her, but she suspected that if he wasn’t, his experience was at least extremely limited. The most he tried to do that wasn’t with his hips was squeezing her breasts. He didn’t seem to have much concept of what a clitoris or a female orgasm were. It made no sense. How could _Angel’s brother_ be worse at sex than old man?

In the fake moonlight, she could see the outline of the elephant “Pentious” had gotten him sitting prominently on his shelf. Any time she even poked at the subject though, he would go into a cold sweat and re-iterate how heterosexual he was. Yep, totally straight. No matter how many times she caught him staring at the snake’s ass, (or at least, what passed for it) looking like he was on the verge of turning into a drooling moron. It was actually kind of embarrassing for him sometimes. He’d even once asked her if she’d ever thought about dying her hair black.

She shouldn’t have let Angel run in on them like that at the zoo. They were actually getting somewhere. She needed to recreate that scenario. Lock them both in a freezer? No, they were both cold-blooded, and as much as she liked the joke about the frozen snake, she doubted that would be conducive to romance. If only one of them were warm-blooded and they would have to snuggle for heat. That would be too easy!

.

As Arackniss was getting dressed, Cherri rolled over in the bed and spoke up. “Hey, Spider-boy. What do you like to do for fun?”

“Clean my guns, practice target shooting…”

“I meant like, do you draw? Paint? Make music? Write? Video games?” His face was blank, and she could almost see the question mark appearing above his head. “You don’t… have a hobby?”

“I did draw a bit when I was younger, before Anthony came out and dad clamped down on anything he thought was too feminine as a result,” he said slowly.

“Why don’t you get back into that? Your dad doesn’t have to know. I mean, I think I miiiight be able to wrangle up some supplies and a live model for you?”

“Live model? You mean like… nude model…?” he asked, stammering a bit as he looked her still-naked body up and down.

“If that’s what you’re into,” she answered, sticking out her tongue and moving one long finger in circles in his direction.

“I… um… if I don’t have to work late, okay…”

.

Cherri had her hands around Pentious’ neck and he had his tail around hers. They were both trying to be the first to strangle the other one into submission when the large clock loudly chimed five. Cherri stopped, releasing her grip and stretching out her fingers. “Start again here tomorrow?” she asked, cracking her knuckles.

“I had my tail wrapped around you three times. I know you’ll try to claim it was only two tomorrow,” Pentious argued back. They’d clearly done this before.

“You know, our fights are a lot more fun now that we can separate work and play,” she said. Between nine and five, they were enemies, minus a half hour in the middle for lunch. Outside of that, they had almost reached the point of friends. They were certainly something with benefits, if not friends with benefits. “Although our whole arrangement confuses Angel.”

“It isn’t a conventional agreement between enemies by any means,” Pentious agreed.

“Hey, snakey? I was thinking of doing some art tonight. Maybe a little live drawing. You see, the thing is… I could use a model,” she said, getting up close to him and brushing her fingers on his chest.

“Are… are you asking me to model for you? Well, I suppose I, Sir Pentious, do have the most impressive body of all demons in Hell,” he preened, flexing. He couldn’t see the Egg Bois. Half were rolling their eyes; the other half were nearly swooning in awe. They were quite glad for his business arrangement with Cherri, as she was less inclined to smash them now that she knew she could get them to do things for her, like bringing her a drink while she marathoned video games all night.

“Is that a yes?” she asked, her voice a purr.

“I… I suppose I could grace your eyes with pure perfection once again,” he answered.

Good Lucifer, this man. “Great! I need to stop by the store and grab some supplies. Why don’t you wait outside for me?”

.

“I didn’t think you literally meant GRAB SOME SUPPLIES!” Pentious shouted back at Cherri as they fled to his mini zeppelin. They were fleeing so fast he literally had to hold onto his hat.

“How was I supposed to know an art supply store would have beefy security guards?!” she asked, tossing another bomb over her shoulder. She still had a hand-basket full of supplies, although she was losing some as they tried to escape.

“Do you know how expensive that stuff is?” Pentious shot back as he scrambled up the ramp, hitting the button to close it as he did.

“I guess I do now!” she answered.

One of the guards ALMOST managed to catch the ramp as it closed. Pentious was panting, chest heaving, spread across the floor as Cherri went to the window to yell at the lizard demons and give them double middle fingers. “Why do you put me in these situations?” Pentious gasped between huffs.

“You know you love me making your life more exciting, old man.”

“You call me old man, but you apparently do not think I am much too old for this,” he responded. He was lying face-down on the floor now, trying to cool his exhausted body and aching muscles.

“Good, I didn’t lose any of the stuff I really wanted to get,” Cherri said, ignoring him as she took inventory of what she’d managed to get back to the airship.

.

“Come on, guys, why are you being like this?” Cherri protested. She had one hand holding the back of Pentious’ coat and one hand holding the back of Arackniss’ coat, and they were trying to go in opposite directions.

“I thought you were going to be the model! I didn’t agree to draw a naked guy,”

“And… and I thought you were the one who wanted to draw me!”

“I do want to draw you! But I want Arackniss to draw with me!” she said. They were trying to pull her limbs off in their efforts to storm away from one another. “Ugh! What if we both model? We can take turns! Come on, you can’t be a great artist if you only draw girls!”

“Who said I want to be a great artist? You asked me if I had a hobby and that was it,” the spider answered.

“Fine, if you two won’t cooperate, then no pussy for either of you for a month!” she said angrily. That got them to at least stop pulling on her limbs. “There, that’s better,” she said as they stopped struggling. “Ow, my arms. It’s going to be hard to draw with my arms hurting. Thanks, guys.”

.

“I… I know I have the perfect body, but this still feels… awkward…” the snake stammered.

“Dude, we can’t even see your cocks unless you choose to take them out,” Cherri pointed out in response to him. “You normally only wear a jacket with your chest exposed. I don’t know why you’re so freaked out that we can see your arms now and that’s about all we can’t normally see.”

“I can’t help it, the eye on my chest is stupidly sensitive to being touched. I can drag my other body eyes on the ground all day, but if I put anything over that one, it itches and the scales around it get all red. It’s the principle of the thing, anyway! Clothes make the man and give the proper impression of your place in society!”

“We know your place in society, and it’s us mutually strangling each other on a street corner,” Cherri answered. “Or all of us getting food poisoning at the same time.”

“Please do not remind me of that, I am only now getting back to eating normally.”

Cherri shrugged and then looked over at Arackniss’ drawing. “Hey, I thought you only dabbled in drawing. That’s really good!”

The spider flushed a bit. “You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“No, I’m serious. Look at mine,” Cherri said. Hers was a stick figure with extra circles on it. Arackniss’ picture could at least be recognized as Sir Pentious by someone who knew the snake.

“Can I see?” Pentious asked.

“Sure, why not take a break and then we can switch places,” Cherri shrugged, rubbing her shoulders. “I’m getting a little stiff from all this drawing anyway.”

Pentious leaned over Arackniss’ shoulder. “Cherri is right, that does look nice. Not sure I would hire you to do my portrait for my office when I take over as Overlord, but I find it enjoyable.”

“Could… could you not lean on me with your clothes off?” Arackniss asked awkwardly, squirming away from the snake.

.

“I’m more of a musician and inventor than a drawing artist,” Pentious said with a frown. If you thought Cherri’s drawing was bad, you should see his. It wasn’t even really proper stick figures. He had to admit, even Blitzo could draw better than this.

“Maybe you should try drawing with your tail, like those zoo animals that do paintings,” Cherri suggested. “I should have invited Angel, I bet he’d have fun doing this too.”

“Yes, let us add another layer of awkwardness,” Pentious grunted. “Maybe I was meant to be an abstract artist,” he sighed, crumpling up his drawing.

“Don’t trash your early work, you want to save it so you can see how you’ve gotten better!” Cherri argued, picking up her bath robe and crossing over to him.

“I think I might be too old to learn a new trick. I will stick with music and machines,” he shrugged.

“Will you at least take another turn as a model before rage quitting?”

“Fine, but only once more,” he answered. “You can find another model after tonight if you wish to continue, although I doubt you will find one with a body as perfect as mine.”

“You didn’t think that body was so perfect when we were sick. You couldn’t even use the toilet properly.”

“Can we stop talking about that?!” Pentious raged back at her, his hood up.

“Oh, yeah, put your hood up when you pose next! I want to try to draw that!”

It was during the third drawing session that things went disastrously wrong. You remember Cherri’s earlier comment? Well, unfortunately… in the middle of the drawing session, poor snake boy accidentally popped a double boner. Cherri was laughing and he was clearly humiliated, but neither of them expected the spider to react the way he did.

He threw his drawing pad across the room, startling both other demons. “You did that on purpose!”

“I… I most certainly DID NOT!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you anyway? I knew you had two cocks, but I wasn’t expecting fluorescent pink with spikes!”

“Oh, and what does YOUR supposedly amazing cock look like!?” the snake hissed back. “Small like you?!”

“I’m not showing it to you, because I’m not a fag like you! I saw where you were looking when you put your dicks out!”

“I… I was looking at Cherri’s breasts!”

“YOU WERE NOT. You know what, fuck you both! I don’t need either of you in my life! The cleanse has happened, so there are bound to be apartments open now. I’ll be out of here as soon as I find one!” he said, stomping off angrily.

“FINE! I didn’t want either of you here anyway!” Pentious screamed after him, slithering off. Cherri thought she’d caught a tiny catch in his voice at the end of the sentence. He was clearly upset.

“Fuck,” was all Cherri would say, slinking down into a chair. The concerned Egg Bois patted her hand.

.

Cherri was sulking in her room when she heard a tentative knock on her door. Opening it, she saw two Egg Bois waiting. “Boss man wants to apologize for yelling at you. Can you meet him downstairs in the sauna? 

Pentious did have a small sauna room, although he hadn’t let her use it since she’d decided to shave her legs in there. What was the problem? It was just a little hair, and she _thought_ she’d cleaned it all up. Maybe he was going to apologize for yelling at her for that as well.

.

“Hey, you in here?” Cherri asked, sticking her head in. The steam was so thick, she couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, what did you want to talk about Cherri?” Arackniss spoke up.

“Wait a second, Arackniss?”

“What in the world? Why are both of you in here?” Pentious asked. “I thought you wanted to talk to me. Are you trying to trick us into getting along? Because it won’t work!”

“I didn’t do anything!” Cherri shouted. “The Egg Bois told me… wait…”

Ka-SNAP. All three heads turned towards the slamming door. They could see egg eyes peering at them through the glass window.

Pentious slithered quickly towards the door and tried to force it open. It was locked tight. They could hear giggling on the other side.

“Let us out!” Pentious shouted, pounding his hand on the door. “You open this door right now, or I will be having fried eggs for breakfast for a year!”

“Nope. Not until you all talk this out,” came the reply from the other side.

“We like Miss Cherri and Master Arackniss. You three are going to figure this out like grown-ups.”

“Fuck, tricked by eggs!” Cherri said, slapping herself in the face.

The three demons looked at one another.

-to be continued-

-roundabout plays-


	6. Sauna Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will our trio of weirdos get out of the sauna or will they become poached eggs?

The three demons sat side by side on the bench, with Cherri between the two guys. It was utter silence, other than the occasional hiss of steam. Finally, Cherri let out something that was a combination of a primal scream and a groan. “We can’t just sit here in bath towels staring at the walls and pretending we don’t see each other,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I… yes, you’re right. Arackniss, please accept that I really did not mean to make things awkward earlier, it was an accident!” Pentious pleaded.

“Yeah, I know. When I calmed down enough to think about it, I realized that sometimes those kind of things just happen sometimes. I’m a man. I know. I just…” he flipped his fingers through the fluffy bang-like bit of hair hanging off the strong of his face. “After what happened with Anthony, Pops would lose his mind over anything he even slightly saw as two men behaving in any way he didn’t see as properly masculine towards each other. He kept thinking he’d done something wrong to make Anthony that way. He decided what he’d done wrong was that he hadn’t been hard enough on us. That he should have beat the first inklings out of my brother when it started. ‘Nip it in the bud,’ he would say. If he saw our little impromptu art session…”

“But he won’t,” Cherri said when the spider’s voice drifted away.

“Tell that to the part of my brain that’s always on alert,” he grunted shortly in response. “I already have to keep that I’ve been hanging out with my brother on the down low, and he would have burned this place down rather than let me live here if it had only been me and another guy. Not to mention I… well, I haven’t had the most luck with women.”

Cherri held back her initial instinct to reply with “Yeah no shit” now that he was finally opening up. She put a note in the back of her head to talk to him about being an adult and not needing his daddy’s permission to do what he wanted at a later date.

The spider continued talking. “When I was alive, I was too short for most women. Every time I’d even get set up on a blind date, I could see them looking where they thought my eyes should be and then staring down at where they actually were in confusion. I’m sure they weren’t all actually judging me, but after enough of them did, it started to look like they all did. Now that I’m a spider, I’m still too short for most demons.”

“I thought spider demons preferred their men smaller,” Cherri asked.

“They prefer them snack-sized,” Arackniss answered. “Getting eaten is not really my kink.”

“You would be surprised how many demon’s kink it is,” Pentious added in, shaking his head disapprovingly. “I get at least one message a week from someone asking me to suffocate and swallow them. They call it… vore? I can also emphasize with your height issues. Female snakes also prefer smaller males, and given my physical size and species… I’m larger than most female snake demons I’ve met. Do not even get me started on the number of times I have been mistaken for a female snake from behind only for some guy to get all homophobic in my face because of his mistake! I mean… I just don’t get it. The obsession with genitals determining romantic compatibility beyond the capacity for sexual reproduction is nonsensical.”

“That was a very windy way of saying you’re pan, wasn’t it?” Cherri asked.

“I am not cookware! I am saying, I am not attracted to individuals because of their genitals. And just look at the ridiculousness that is gender reveal parties! Back in my day, we did the sensible thing, and dressed babies of both sexes in clothes that could be boiled or bleached because babies eject bodily fluids on a frequent basis. It does not make sense to put pants on a baby when dresses make for much easier diaper changing.”

“This is not something I ever expected to hear you rant about,” Arackniss said with a slight snicker in his voice. “I can’t imagine any guy in my family ever changing a diaper, and yet you can go on about the nuances of practicality of baby clothes.”

“I came from an era of big families, and well, it bothers me! I can’t even wear the designer clothes I got from the modelling show without someone making fun of me for being a ‘man in a dress. I have enough problems with people mocking me for looking too ‘feminine’ even when I purposely wear clothes to emphasize my masculine body traits.”

“Have you seen my brother? I wouldn’t make fun of you,” Arackniss said kindly.

“I take it you don’t have much use for gender, snake-boy?”

“The only thing gender has ever done is kept many brilliant women from their potential,” he grunted. Cherri raised an eyebrow. There was a story there, but again, now was not the time to ask about it. The last thing she wanted to do was poke either one hard enough to make them retreat into their shells, but she had to keep them talking.

“Have you ever considered that you might be non-binary, then?” Cherri asked.

“Binary? Is that not how computers speak?” the bewildered snake asked, scratching the top of his head.

“Non-binary means you don’t exclusively identify as a man or a woman. I mean, it would make things easier for Niss over here cuz if his dad was like ‘Son, do you live with a man,’ he could be like ‘Nah dad, no dudes here’ cuz… if you’re non-binary, you’re not a dude.”

“I’m confused,” Pentious answered. The look in his eyes showed that he wasn’t following her logic.

“Ah, google it when we get out of here. Speaking of which, it’s really starting to get hot in here,” Cherri said, fanning herself. “Are we all good again? No one going to do anything drastic like moving out?” The two men nodded sheepishly in agreement. Cherri went to the door and cupped her hands over her mouth. “Hey, eggs! We’ve talked it out and Niss isn’t going to move out!... Eggs?” she called. “Eggs?!” She looked out the view window. “Those little chicken butt bastards have wandered off!”

“Yes, their attention span… needs work.”

“Wait, so we’re just stuck in here?!” Cherri asked, slightly alarmed.

“The door is designed to open and start a cooling cycle regardless of the position of the lock when it reaches an uncomfortable temperature, to keep anyone from falling asleep in here and steam-cooking themselves.”

“You could have mentioned that earlier,” Arackniss answered in annoyance.

“I don’t want you to move out, so I was actually kind of… okay with the egg plan,” he said nervously, touching his fingertips together.

The spider’s eyes narrowed. “Did you set this up?”

“NO! No, it was the eggs! I swear on my scales.”

“You know, while we wait for the automatic lock to pop, we could have a lovely three-way in the sauna,” Cherri purred. Both guys turned bright red. At first, she thought they were being shy, but then, Arackniss fell over with his eyes spinning.

“Niss!” Pentious cried.

“It’s too hot!” Cherri said in alarm. “When is that automatic lock going to trigger?”

“It’s set for my maximum tolerance. He must have less ability to handle heat than I do.”

“Is there anything we can do to cool him down?”

“I’ll… I’ll try to break the door down,” Pentious said nervously, starting to slam himself up against it. “WHY did I put a deadbolt on my sauna?!” he asked.

“Why is there a lock on it at all?”

“To keep the Egg Bois from getting in and poaching themselves!” he answered.

Fortunately, his pounding got the egg’s attention and they rushed to open the door. Unfortunately, they opened the door right as Pentious was rushing it. He caught his tail on the threshold, which caused him to fall and roll up into a ball. He went rolling through his apartment like a rip off of Sonic the hedgehog. Several pieces of furniture were thrown about in his wake.

Cherri ran upstairs, carrying the spider over her head, so that she could toss him under a cool stream of water from the shower. In her rush she’d forgotten both his towel and hers, so it was basically a nudist dash through Pentious’ house. Too bad Pentious was so dizzy from his roll that he couldn’t even enjoy the view.

The eggs sighed, crossing their arms and tapping their feet. “They’re hopeless,” 69 said to 420 with a disapproving look.

If you're feeling like it, check out the Pirate Pentious I scribbled: 

<https://twitter.com/deadlegato/status/1358601674802278403?s=20>


	7. Sir Pentious versus the Co-Bro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else wants to date Sir Pentious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having some unfortunate things happen in my personal life that's stressing me out and making writing hard. Please excuse this chapter for not being beta-read, I just wanted to get it out. I want to do some more with the Co-bro because he's genuinely making me laugh.

"So, then I said: Come on Arackniss, you can't still be steamed about the sauna incident. Which turned out to be the wrong thing to say," Pentious sighed, stirring his drink in a distant manner. He preferred tea, but when coffee was the only option, he was certainly the 'would you like a drop of coffee in your milk' type.

"There are demons who have a way with words, and then there's you," Cherri responded. They were on their lunch break, having drinks and sandwiches on a park bench. "Ugh, after work we need to stop by the club so I can check on Angel. His boss is being a prick again," she said as she scrolled through her phone. "I really hate that flappy so-and-so who thinks he's the greatest thing since..."

Pentious leaned back and let Cherri rant about how much she hated Valentino. She would frequently mention that if she had big enough pins, she'd like to turn him into a preserved insect specimen and donate him to a museum. He was lost in the sound of her rant when a tugging at his arm pulled him back to reality.

In confusion, he looked around for a moment before looking down to see a very short snake-demon smiling up at him. It was another cobra, although a significantly smaller variety. He was wearing a backwards and oversized baseball cap with the price tags still attached, several gaudy cold chains, and an "Aberzombie and Flinch" branded shirt with a popped collar that was about two sizes too small.

"Hello there. I just wanted to introduce myself. I usually go for hotter snake girls, but you could be not half-bad looking after a few drinks," he said, making finger-guns. Pentious rubbed his cheek in annoyance to get the saliva off. Ah, so this was a spitting cobra. Damn, they annoyed the shit out of him. Fully half of Pentious' multitude of eyes twitched in response.

"Wait a minute, did you just try negging?" Cherri asked with a snort, her rant interrupted. "Wow, that's sad, even in Hell."

"I wasn't talking to you, one-eyed tit monster," the snake-bro snapped back.

"Just ignore them, Cherri. If you give them attention they'll never go away," Pentious said back to her.

"When you said you get hit on a lot by shorties I thought you were kidding."

Co-bro was getting annoyed by being ignored by the two of them. "Excuse me! It's not the length of the snake, it's what is in their shake!" he said, emphasizing the point by wagging his hips and lashing his tail about.

"Bug off, short stack, this one's already claimed," Cherri answered, making a shoo gesture with her hand.

The snake's eyes got huge. "Lessssbians! Can I watch?" he hissed gleefully.

Cherri started to get up with her hands balled into fists when Pentious put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. "I will take care of this," he said simply.

He then stood up, pulling his full length out from under the bench. She could tell by the way the other snake's face fell that he had severely underestimated Pentious' size from his sitting height. Pentious then picked the other snake up under his arm like a yoga mat and carried him over to the nearest trash can.

Using his tail to flick off the lid, he deposited the other snake upside-down in the bin, smashing him a few times with his tail until all of the smaller snake fit in the trash. Then he neatly placed the lid back on the can and pulled out a container of hand sanitizer and cleaned his hands. A sign overhead read ‘Keep our park beautiful, dispose of trash properly.’

"Wow, that was kind of impressive. How come you don't fight like that when you're fighting me?" Cherri asked as they returned back to where they’d been fighting. Lunch was over, and it was time to get back to work.

"I am much too polite to put a lady in a trash can,” he responded to her cheekily.

After some time of wiggling and thrashing, Co-bro managed to get himself out of the trash can. He went back to the document he’d been reading on his phone. This wasn’t how it was supposed to have gone. Well, he wasn’t giving up yet.

.

Pentious was chasing Cherri with a flame thrower, which turned out to be not exactly his best decision, as she kept throwing bombs at him that he would then inadvertently light, causing them to explode in his face and knock him back. So far, he’d set three cars on fire, but hadn’t gotten even close to Cherri.

As he picked himself up again and dusted himself off, he suddenly felt two hands right on his backside, grabbing him below the coat. Thinking it was Cherri he spun around released the full force of his flame thrower, blasting the other cobra into a char. As the other cobra wobbled, letting out a cough of black smoke, Cherri looked over Pentious’ shoulder. “Crispy,” she commented. “Damn, burned snake stinks,” she commented as he fell over onto the pavement.

“You think it stinks for you, I smell and taste simultaneously with my tongue,” he mumbled, hand over his face. “I can not only smell it; I can taste it. Let’s go fight somewhere else for now.”

“No objections from me,” Cherri answered.

.

“I have to say, this is one of the sillier things we’ve done to resolve a territory dispute,” Pentious said.

“Shut up and play your word.”

“Don’t rush me, I’m thinking.” Yes, they were indeed playing Scrabble for territory. Pentious thought this would be an easy win for himself, as he considered his intelligence second to none, but it turned out Cherri had a surprisingly large vocabulary and a ruthless understanding of how to use the board to her advantage.

“You know, I like it when girls pretend to be smart,” a voice said in a smooth hiss.

“Oh, Lucifer. Cherri, he’s back again,” Pentious said as he finally made his play.

“Weren’t you the one who said to just ignore him?”

He ignored that they were discussing ignoring him. “I like your hat. It’s like a… crazy, funky, junky hat. If you will notice, I also have a hat,” he said, preening his scales. “Say, if you’re lesbians, which one of you pegs the other?” he asked. “I bet it’s the cyclops. She seems like the man in your relationship.”

Cherri’s hand clenched hard enough that she cracked the scrabble tile between her fingers. Her one eye twitched. Pentious was trying to hold back the snicker that was trying to escape his throat. “You know, now that I look at it, you’re hotter than I originally thought,” she said brightly. “Come here, you handsome snake man. Give this butch lesbian a kiss,” she said, grabbing him and smashing her mouth against his.

He pulled back a moment later, choking and gasping. “Did you… did you… did you just spit your gum down my throat?”

“Wasn’t gum,” she answered. A moment later, he exploded.

“That was a bit of an over-reaction, wasn’t it, Cherri? You ruined our game board,” he said, flicking a bit of body gunk off the letters.

“Sorry about that. You want to go back to punching each other?”

“Only if we move away from the mess first.”

.

Co-bro dusted himself off and adjusted his clothes. His popped collar didn’t want to stay up any longer. He’d been dunked in a trash can, set on fire, and blown up. Most men would have gotten the hint by then, but not Co-bro. His advice app said not let the woman control the interaction, and clearly, they were controlling the situation. His pride as a man was on the line.

By the time he’d pulled himself together again, it was almost quitting time. Arackniss had come to meet Pentious and Cherri, as they’d all planned to grab burritos together before going home. The three were chatting when Co-bro slithered up again, earning a grown from both Pentious and Cherri. “Who is this?” he asked. “Is this your adopted lesbian son?” he asked, pointing at Arackniss. Pentious couldn’t hold it back any longer, he broke out laughing. 

“Excuse me?” Arackniss asked, his voice a deep growl.

“You know, if you two want more sons, I have TWO penises. Did you know that snakes have two penises?” he asked. “Two penises for two lesbians. We can get a babysitter for junior for the night.”

That resulted in Pentious laughing even harder and grabbing his stomach, wiping away the laughter tears coming from his eyes. All of his eyes were leaking, turning him into quite a mess.

“I think you’d better beat it before I get any angrier,” Arackniss threatened.

“Oh, itty-bitty mama’s boy gonna protect his mommies from the big, bad snakey? Maybe when you’re older you’ll understand why I like your moms. Why don’t you run onto the candy store for awhile so the grown-ups can talk?” he asked, ruffling Arackniss’ hair.

This finally broke Cherri as well, who had her hands over her mouth to hold back the snickers. Pentious was rolling on the ground laughing, literally.

All of Arackniss’ eyes were twitching. “You’ve got ten seconds to leave the area before I put a few extra holes in your body as well.”

“Oh Lucifer, Arackniss, phrasing!” Cherri laughed, having to steady herself against a wall to keep from falling over with laughter. It wasn’t that Co-bro was funny. It was watching exactly how much rage could be compressed into Arackniss’ small frame.

“Yeah, aren’t you a little young to be saying things like that? How old are you? Nine? Ten?”

.

The three demons sat at the burrito place, having left after Arackniss aerated the other snake. “Do you think that’s the last we’ve seen of him?” Pentious asked.

“Sadly, I suspect he’s only just begun to fight.”

“The fact that he’d hiding in the bushes outside watching us makes me think Cherri is right,” Arackniss pointed out. “Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of it.” A moment later, a huge dump truck full of manure showed up to unload on the bushes. “I sure love a well-cared for plant,” he said, sipping his soda.

.

Art: [Sir Pentious vs the Co-Bro](https://flic.kr/p/2kCH85o)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DREW CO-BRO! I imagine him as a Mozambique spitting corbra, the smallest species, trying to lay the moves on a King cobra, the largest species 
> 
> https://twitter.com/deadlegato/status/1361521168113692676?s=20


	8. Dancing Snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arackniss recruits Pentious to help him take out a rival's security system. The problem is, sneaking Pentious into the base won't be easy... on the snake's dignity.

.

If the image does not show up for you, click here: [Bad Company Ch8](https://photos.app.goo.gl/86DEcoeVfATMLWyF8)

If anyone had told the great Sir Pentious that he, with all his grand power and intellect, would be dismantling a security system while dressed like an extra from I Dream of Genie… he would have laughed. Yet, here he was, and it was really happening.

.

It had all started back at home. Arackniss had flopped onto the couch with an annoyed grunt-groan, throwing his hat over his shoulder. It landed on the hat rack with perfect aim, nothing less than Pentious would have expected of Hell’s greatest assassin.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the disgruntled arachnid.

“I’ve been trying to get to this one rival boss for weeks, but he’s always got a wall of goons when he goes out, and his home base security is just too frustratingly good,” Arackniss huffed.

“Really? What kind of security system is it?”

“According to our eyes on the inside, it’s a Secure Demon Pro 50K. That mean anything to you?”

“Ah… yes, the Secure Demon Pro 50K. Quite an advance from the 40 without the price point of the 75,” Pentious mused, rubbing where his chin would be if he had a less rounded face. “But does have one critical weakness compared to the 75, which explains the cost difference.”

Arackniss sat up straighter. “Critical weakness? Do tell.”

“It overheats quite easily, and the coolant system alarm is surprisingly easy to bypass, so one could theoretically overheat the system and cause it to melt down before the operators even knew anything was wrong,” Pentious answered.

Arackniss jumped off the couch and grabbed Pentious by both arms. “That’s it! Pent, you’re a genius!”

“Yes, I know.” The snake was puffed up with pride.

“Ugh, what I mean is… you could disable his security system, and then I could make sure he has a little less head on his shoulders. If you know what I mean.”

“While it’s a tantalizing thought, Mr. Arackniss, the problem is that I’d have to be right up next to the system to dismantle it, and I’m certain he has it in an extremely secure location.”

“Yeah, in a side room in his base. But Pent… what if I knew of a way to get you inside?”

“Get me inside?” Pentious asked.

.

“No,” the snake said when Arackniss showed him the outfit.

“Come on, Pent. I need you to help me out,” Arackniss urged.

“I am not… not dressing like a budget costume version of enslaved Princess Jasmine,” he said, crossing his arms firmly and huffing. “I have my dignity!”

“Look, the guy is throwing a big party for his birthday with a whole bunch of cooch dancers. No one will notice if we sneak an extra snake in,” Arackniss explained. “Come on, help me out? You’re the only one clever enough to do it.”

“Well… What am I saying, no!”

“Helping take this guy down sure would look good on the resume of a future Overlord,” Cherri added in, ribbing Pentious.

“You just want to see me in this stupid outfit,” he retorted to her.

“I sure do. I want to see you in that outfit in my bedroom… once you’ve helped Arackniss out, of course,” she goaded.

“…”

.

Despite his reluctant agreement with help, he still felt so… naked. How could anyone stand having all of their midriff scales exposed like that constantly? He shook his head. Couldn’t let the breeze against his belly distract him. He twisted the last two wires into place, and once certain of his work, texted the code ‘the pigs are in the blanket’ to Arackniss. It was a stupid code, in his opinion, but Arackniss was the one who came up with it.

Slipping his phone back into a pocket hidden under the sashes tied at his waist, he peered out to make sure the coast was clear before sliding out of the security control room. The pink veil covering the lower half of his face itched, but it had done its job hiding his fangs from the man guarding the security box until it was too late. The poisoned guard lay on the floor with his arms bound behind his back as Pentious slipped away.

He planned to be out of there before the assassination, but if things went according to plan for once, well… that wouldn’t be his luck. Just as he had the exit door in sight, a hand roughly clamped down over his wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?” a gruff iguana demon grunted.

“I… um… ladies’ room?” Pentious answered, trying to disguise his voice.

“Get out there with the other dancers, whore,” he growled, throwing the poor snake onto the stage with the others. Pentious quickly ducked into the back row, lowering himself down on his coils enough to try to decrease his height and hide in the crowd. Fortunately, this group of dancers wasn’t very good, so the fact that he was just copying the others and didn’t actually know the dance didn’t stick out as much as it otherwise might have. He wasn’t really a fan of Arackniss’ brother Angel Dust, but he could see why Angel demanded a much higher price tag than these girls. These girls were rank amateurs in comparison.

Pentious tried not to get too distracted by the twisting, writing dance he was trying to follow. He kept peering around, trying to spot a clock. The lights in his eyes made anything past the stage difficult to focus on. He had told Arackniss it would take twenty to thirty minutes for the security system to overheat once he cut the cooling. That was his time limit to slither out of there.

Just as the girls finished one set and were exiting the stage to prepare for the next, he thought he saw his opportunity. That was, until the iguana once again grabbed his wrist. Pentious froze up, afraid he’d been uncovered. More uncovered than he already was in that revealing outfit, that was.

“The boss wants to see you,” he growled.

“Me? Oh, it couldn’t be me! I’m just a nobody! No snake important at all!” Pentious tried to deflect, squirming in his grip.

“He specifically asked for the black and yellow snake in the red outfit,” the iguana said, dragging Pentious along behind him. Scales weren’t exactly the best for resisting movement.

This is it, he thought. I’m dead. The boss knows I was in the security room and he’s going to kill me on stage. I’m going to die in the stupidest outfit in all of Hell. He was dragged up to a thickly built, muscular snake sitting on a huge throne-like chair. The snake grinned at him, flicking its tongue between its teeth. It was another cobra-type demon. Most demons would have been awed his imposing muscles or massive fangs, but Pentious was not most demons. In fact, the first thing Pentious immediately noticed was that he had hood extensions. What egotistical vanity, Pentious thought disapprovingly.

“This the one you wanted, boss?”

“Yesssss,” he hissed. “She is…” Pentious flinched back, waiting for him to announce that ‘she’ was to be immediately up against the wall in front of the firing squad “the most beautiful serpent I’ve seen in decades!” he finished. Well, of course Pentious knew he was good looking, but still… he had not expected that. The snake demon patted his tail with both hands. “Why don’t you come sit on daddy’s lap and whisper what you want in his ear with your little forked tongue?”

All of Pentious’ left eyes twitched. The last thing he wanted was to be hit on by a greasy snake demon with a tiny hood. Especially when he knew that demon was going to get a bullet through the head any minute now. Still, what choice did he have if he wanted to make it out of this alive?

“You… you are too kind, my liege,” he said, still trying to make his voice sound as feminine as possible. That his voice was naturally on the higher side for a male demon helped. “I… I couldn’t possibly accept such an offer from a great man like yourself…”

The olive colored snake demon narrowed his black eyes. He grabbed Pentious by both wrists and forced the other snake into his arms. “Mmmm, you smell so good, I could just eat you up,” he grinned, flicking his tongue against the veil covering the lower half of Pentious’ face. Suddenly, he was glad to have that part of the stupid outfit. “Why don’t you and I leave this boring joke of a party, gorgeous? You know snakes can mate for hours, right?”

“Er… yes, sir, I _am_ also a snake…” Pentious was looking around for a way out. He was trying to keep the other snake as far away from himself as he could, as the other snake kept trying to put his tongue where Pentious didn’t want it. He had half a mind to bite it off, but then, he didn’t want to end up being ground into a pulp by all the demon’s snickering goons.

“Belly on the ground, tail in the air?” he asked.

“Ex… excuse me, sir, but I am a lady! Ladies do not indulge in such vulgar talk!”

This brought a loud round of laughter from the group. “Lady? You don’t look like a lady in that outfit. You like a whore to me,” he laughed, his hands still tight around Pentious’ wrists.

His heart was pounding in his chest. Where was Arackniss? Could Arackniss not get in a clean shot because he was afraid of hitting him in the process? As he twisted in the other snake’s grip, he noticed something. Those weren’t just hood extensions. The entire hood was fake, a hood wig! “You… you’re not a cobra at all!” Pentious suddenly blurted out. “You’re a fraud!”

Rage crossed the other snake’s face, and Pentious knew he had fucked up. “You bitch!” he said, slamming his fist across Pentious’ face, sending the snake reeling to the ground. “How dare a lowly dancing girl talk to me like that?!”

“You’re… you’re nothing more than a common rat snake dressed up as a cobra!”

“What’s it to you, bitch?”

.

“So that’s when you ate him?” Cherri asked.

“By that point, he was practically asking for it,” Pentious answered with a shrug. “How dare a rat snake call _me_ lowly. Me, the great Sir Pentious! The most regal of the cobras!”

“What did his goons do in response?”

“Honestly, they were so shocked that they all just basically ran away. Er, hang on one second,” he said, coughing a few times loudly before spitting out part of the other snake’s fake hood. “I knew I should have removed this first, but I was just so angry,” Pentious said, tossing it into his trash can.

“I’m glad you did,” Arackniss sighed, rubbing his bruised arms. “They caught me trying to sneak in and would have put _me_ on ice if you hadn’t caused a commotion by eating that bastard. Who would have expected he was a fake snake?”

“You know, it must be nice being able to eat your problems like that,” Cherri mused.

“Yes but having a bloated belly from just eating while in that ridiculous outfit… it looked like I was pregnant,” Pentious said disapprovingly, shaking his head.

“I thought you looked cute in that outfit,” Cherri answered. “Once you slim down again, you should wear it more often. Actually, you should keep belly dancing. It’s good exercise for toning your abdomen, and you’ve got such a slim little waist it would be shame not to show it off. I also can’t imagine there are many other dance styles so fitted for snakes.”

“I think I will pass on that, Miss Bomb,” he answered.

“That’s too bad. I agree with Cherri, it was kind of a nice look on you.” Both Cherri and Pentious turned to Arackniss, who turned red with the realization that he’d just accidentally said that out loud. “I mean… um… you… you have a nice waist! You should show it off more! Not that I was looking at a man’s waist! I just… I mean… um… heeeey, I think I hear the mailman, better go check out Pentious’ package. I MEAN, CHECK IF PENTOUS GOT A PACKAGE. I…” he scuttled out of the room quickly, red as a tomato. Good look for him.

Cherri sighed and snapped her fingers. “So close, and yet so far,” she sighed.

“What do you mean, Miss Bomb?” Pentious asked, tilting his head in confusion.

She just shook her head. “Nothing important, snakey. Nothing important.”


End file.
